The Student Room Group

Access to business help!!

Hey people! :smile:

Just wondering if anyone out there has done or is doing the access to business course?

If so what unis are you applying to or are going to at the moment?

Also what tips can you give me in order to get above 30 distinctions in the course?

Thanks!!
Reply 1
Original post by Art Department
Hey people! :smile:

Just wondering if anyone out there has done or is doing the access to business course?

If so what unis are you applying to or are going to at the moment?

Also what tips can you give me in order to get above 30 distinctions in the course?

Thanks!!


To get 30 distinctions, you need to start getting your distinctions as soon as possible. The easier modules (normally) come first and so represent the best opportunity to pick up easy distinctions.

Make it clear to your tutor what you expect to achieve, make it clear how hard you're working and what you need to get in order to get in to your first choice uni. If they see how dedicated you are, how hard you work and how determined you are to go to a certain uni, then you will have them on your side and they will do everything they can to get you there.

My course was just called "Access", it didn't have a certain pathway, but I managed to get 5 offers (Birmingham, Bristol, Aston, Reading, Cardiff) for Economics and Finance, and certainly part of that was to do with solid references. You dont have long to impress your tutors since they write references after only having taught you for a month or two. Do your best to make a good impression as soon as you can.

good luck!
Original post by josh_v
To get 30 distinctions, you need to start getting your distinctions as soon as possible. The easier modules (normally) come first and so represent the best opportunity to pick up easy distinctions.

Make it clear to your tutor what you expect to achieve, make it clear how hard you're working and what you need to get in order to get in to your first choice uni. If they see how dedicated you are, how hard you work and how determined you are to go to a certain uni, then you will have them on your side and they will do everything they can to get you there.

My course was just called "Access", it didn't have a certain pathway, but I managed to get 5 offers (Birmingham, Bristol, Aston, Reading, Cardiff) for Economics and Finance, and certainly part of that was to do with solid references. You dont have long to impress your tutors since they write references after only having taught you for a month or two. Do your best to make a good impression as soon as you can.

good luck!


Thanks so much for the reply and congratulations on your offers! May i ask what your offers were for each university? And also how many hours did you study on average a day?
Reply 3
Original post by Art Department
Thanks so much for the reply and congratulations on your offers! May i ask what your offers were for each university? And also how many hours did you study on average a day?


It was quite a while ago, Ive already graduated. But If I remember correctly, Birmingham and Reading were both 30 at distinction, 15 at merit. And I believe Bristol was something a bit lower - around 24 distinction although I'm not certain. Cardiff and Aston I can't remember, but it was less than 30 distinctions.
Hello!

I would be happy to give you some tips/information on what to expect (and how to get the best grades).
Access to HE is one of the best things I did for myself, it got me going and showed me that I could really work hard and have it pay off (I am studying BSc Business and International Relations)

My top tip for the first few weeks of your Access to HE studies would be focus on your Personal Statement. It's the most boring thing you will ever do, but just get it done. Its around 500 words of writing, but requires a lot of thought and self evaluation, do a good job with this and Uni's will be very eager to recruit you (I received all of my uni offers 1-2 weeks after submitting my Personal Statement, whilst the majority of the students in my class did not receive offers until months later).

In regards to essays, there not many and you are given ages to do them, just start them at once. You get ZERO homework on the access course (at least on the one I did), there is no reason not to start and finish quickly. The majority of people in my class dident - and their grades suffered.

Notes, take them. You will need them. Especialy for Economy and Human Resource Management. You do have to take notes for all classes but these two are the major ones. With these two dont mess about, listen to whats going on, take the notes and go home and re-write them. Why? Because on both of these you have a 'hand writen notes are okay exam'. Yeah seriously. I had aprox 50 pages of notes for my Human resource exam, and I nailed it whilst others failed hard (Some people dident know what Implication meant...). Just take notes!

What college are you doing your access course at? I did mine at Sutton Coldfield college.

If your having to re-do maths because u dont have a GCSE in it previously the only advice I can give you is apply yourself. Yes maths is boring but you know what? You need the skills. Especially if your doing business. I'm doing a joint honors degree so my business is only worth half of my degree and yet i'm doing a Quantitative methods course (this includes some maths ive never seen before....) apply yourself now or suffer later (p.s I got 98% on my maths exam and there's still stuff im unsure about).

I have to warn you, my class started out as 22 students. After Christmas we were down to 10, and two of those 10 failed their exams. Do not be one of those.

The offers I received were as follow: Aston Uni - Get merits through out the course. Birmingham Uni - Pass the course. (I just applied to local ones since I own a home and have no interest in moving into student halls)

I got 7 distinctions and 2 merits.

If you have any other questions just throw them at me and i'll answer everything I can (:

Edit: Oh and make sure you learn Harvard referencing! Let me know if you want me to post you some examples to help you get started.
(edited 9 years ago)
I wouldn't count on having zero homework. At most colleges, you will get plenty of it! I don't know what the average is for the business pathways, but on my course (Engineering) I think I averaged 20 hours per week outside the classroom, and some weeks it was considerably more.
Original post by Schadenfreude65
I wouldn't count on having zero homework. At most colleges, you will get plenty of it! I don't know what the average is for the business pathways, but on my course (Engineering) I think I averaged 20 hours per week outside the classroom, and some weeks it was considerably more.


Yes I have heard that it varies a lot from course to course and college. I can only however advise on what I personally experienced, by all means take it with a pinch of salt. I definitely think that the science subjects had a much higher workload since there's probably a lot more to cover.
Original post by Cloudborn
Yes I have heard that it varies a lot from course to course and college. I can only however advise on what I personally experienced, by all means take it with a pinch of salt. I definitely think that the science subjects had a much higher workload since there's probably a lot more to cover.

Yes, quite likely. I just wouldn't want the OP to get an impression about the workload which may be completely different on their course. It's better to overestimate the number of hours you will need to set aside, then the other way around.

Quick Reply

Latest